


Cheating Out

by mmtittle



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - No Pennywise (IT), M/M, Miscommunication, Not Cheating, One Shot, POV Third Person Limited, Pansexual Stanley Uris, Richie Tozier-centric, Stozier, ballerina stan, cause fuck that bitch ass clown, don't read the tags if you don't want the ending spoiled, paranoid richie, stanley uris is a dancer, the title is a bad dance pun, this whole thing could have been solved by just talking to each other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-08
Updated: 2019-10-08
Packaged: 2020-11-27 12:44:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,160
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20948549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mmtittle/pseuds/mmtittle
Summary: Stanley and Richie have been together for a few months and everything is going great.Except Richie can't shake the idea that Stan is hiding something from him.He tries to keep the thought off his mind but he can't help but believe that his boyfriend is cheating on him.I mean, what else could it be?(aka Stan is very much not cheating on him but instead just hiding somethin')





	Cheating Out

**Author's Note:**

> hi! i hope you enjoy this one shot! i'm not the best writer but i had this idea and i decided to just roll with it and write what i was thinking.
> 
> trigger/content warnings:  
brief sexual innuendo/implications  
food  
brief mentions of drug  
dumbassery on both sides

If Richie knows one thing about his boyfriend, it’s that he loves routine. Stanley Uris wakes up at the same time every morning, goes for a jog for half an hour, and has the same breakfast of coffee, oatmeal, and a banana in the dining hall every day, except for Saturdays when the losers go out for breakfast. He’s a hard person to figure out but Richie has him pretty well understood. Or at least that’s what he’d like to think. They’d been together for nearly five months and it was going great. Richie had figured out all of his boyfriend's idiosyncrasies and quirks and how to calm him down after a long day when he can’t seem to unwind. It had been a long time since he’d been this happy and he trusts Stan when he says he’s happy too. 

Still, there’s one part of his routine that Richie can’t quite figure out. He didn’t notice it until about two months into their relationship when Stan starts to act strange. 

It started off in small ways. He first noticed something when he decided to surprise Stan with coffee before breakfast and he wasn’t there. Richie decided to just head to the dining hall but it struck him the wrong way. Stan had shown up a few minutes later, sweating and wearing his sweater the wrong way, and given him a kiss and a thank you and when Richie asked where he’d been, Stanley just brushed it off.

“Oh, I was just out,” he said with a shrug of the shoulders. 

“Yes, thank you, I’d assumed that much, Captain Obvious. Out where?” Richie pressed.

“Baby, it really doesn’t matter. I’m here now, yeah? Can we just drop it and eat?” Stan gives him puppy dog eyes and damn it, Richie can’t resist those puppy dog eyes.

Still, it eats at Richie for a while. What could he have been doing and why didn’t he just tell him? Relationships aren’t supposed to have secrets, right? That’s the whole point. But Stan wanted him to drop it and he did.

He drops it, at least for a little while, until he starts to notice other mysterious patterns in Stan’s behavior. He’d ask Stan to a movie for Tuesday and he’d be busy. Okay, fine, that’s how being an adult works. But he wasn’t free on Thursday either. Or on Sunday. ‘Okay, maybe he just has a busy week,’ Richie would justify to himself. It wasn’t like they weren’t hanging out or having dates. Things were still perfectly normal to anybody who didn’t know Stan like he did. But Stan, who always seemed to have an answer for everything, often when Richie hadn’t asked for one, never seemed to be willing to share what he was doing. It took a few more weeks before Richie noticed there was a pattern. It was always the same nights that he wasn’t free and the same late mornings where Stan’s meticulous schedule was a few minutes out of sync. 

It was hard not to be suspicious. When you’re in love, you want to spend every waking moment with your partner; you want to tell them everything. That’s how it’s supposed to be. And that’s how it was for the most part. Richie couldn’t deny that he was a lot happier with Stan than he’d been before and that when they were together, he felt complete. Stan appreciated his dumbass jokes and would send Richie into hysterics constantly without even trying. They’d share stories and stay up all night talking in bed. The physical aspects of their relationship were good too. Richie had no complaints in that department and from the noises Stan was making, he could assume the same thing on his side. Still, this would eat at him.

The obvious thought had occurred to him pretty early on, almost from the first time Stan showed up to breakfast sweating, but Richie refused to entertain it. Stanley wouldn’t do that to him. He wouldn’t cheat. This was the same boy who got worked up over crossword puzzles and birdwatching, he wouldn’t do that. To be honest, he didn’t know if Stan was even capable of cheating. He was so dead set on loyalty, in relationships and friendships, that Richie didn’t want to even consider the idea of cheating. I mean, this was the same boy who wouldn’t talk to his roommate for a week freshman year because he’d insulted Bill’s stutter. And that was back when they’d barely known each other. Still, after a few months, Richie started to seriously think that’s what was happening. 

He went over all the logical possibilities in his head and this was the one he kept circling back to. It made sense, he could see why Stan would do it. Of course he’s not what his boyfriend really wants. Of course Stan would have found somebody better. Maybe Richie had done something to fuck it all up. Maybe he just flat out wasn’t good enough. It hurt but it wasn’t like Richie hadn’t had all these thoughts before they got together. He’d always known that he wasn’t going to be good enough for anybody.

Bev had tried to convince him it was all on his head, that he was seeing signs that weren’t there. 

“Come on, Rich, Stan wouldn’t do something like that. It’s Stanley, he’s probably just playing Dungeons and Dragons or something embarrassing he doesn’t want you to know about.” Bev insists as Richie paces around her apartment, playing with his cuticles.

“No, he plays D&D with Ben, I already know about that,” Richie replies, earning an amused look from Bev. “I’m serious about this, Red, he has to be cheating! What else could it be?” 

“Think about it this way, has he ever moaned another guy’s name in bed or come home smelling like somebody’s perfume? The answer is no. There are a million other things he could be doing that don’t involve cheating. You need to trust him on this and just drop it.”

Of course, being Richie, he can’t just drop it. But he can’t just take it anymore either. He decides to put an end to it by catching Stanley in the act of cheating. Or whatever the hell he was up to.

Richie comes up with a plan. He’ll wait outside Stan’s dorm on Thursday night to see where he goes and confront him. Maybe he’ll be pleasantly surprised but something tells him not to be too optimistic. When Thursday night comes, Richie is decked out in black and waiting in his car. Which, admittedly might be overkill. At around 5:45, Stanley heads out of the building and Richie pops out of the car to confront him. He takes in the scene as he walks to catch up with his boyfriend. Stan is in a sweatshirt that Richie recognizes his own from high school and black leggings. They’re form fitting and if it was any other situation, Richie probably would have wrapped his arms around Stan and whispered to him about how much he was enjoying the view. But he definitely wasn’t in the mood today. He only had one thing on his mind. 

“Stanley!” Richie catches up to him as Stan turns around, clearly a bit startled. He stops walking for a second to greet Richie.

“Hi, love. What’s up?” He asks softly, seeming genuinely caught off guard. Richie won’t let that face stop him from saying what needs to be said. He has to push through and get this off his chest.

“You know what’s up. We need to talk about this.”

Stan sighs softly, taking a look at his boyfriend before turning back around. “Talk about what? And if we’re gonna talk, can we at least do it while we walk? I can’t be late.”

“Late for what? Your date?” Richie says, somehow both bitter and self deprecating. 

“What? What date? What are you on about?” Stan continues to walk, Richie trailing behind him a few steps. 

“Don’t bullshit me, Stanley. I know you’ve been cheating, it’s obvious. What, did you think I would be too dumb to figure it out?” He’s trying to stay calm but his voice is full of all the anger and insecurity that’s been building up for the past three months. 

“What the hell are you talking about, Rich? I’m not cheating on you!” Stan insists, voice crescendoing as he speaks. 

“Then what the hell are you hiding? Am I supposed to believe you’re secretly a drug dealer or something? I’m not stupid.” Richie’s voice breaks a little bit as he continues ranting. “What was it that finally drove you away? You could have just told me if you wanted to break up. Or if you didn’t want to be exclusive. I-I would have understood that. I don’t get what I did wrong. Why am I not enough for you, Stanley? Wh-why don’t you love me?”

Stan stops in his tracks and turns around and for the first time since Richie started talking, he can see that tears have formed in his boyfriend’s eyes. “How the hell could you ever think that you’re not enough for me?” The look in his eyes is enough to crush anybody with a heart. “Or that I don’t love you? You are everything to me, Richie. I-I don’t know where you got the deluded idea that you aren’t good enough or that I don’t want to be with you anymore but clearly I’ve been doing something wrong if you can’t see how crazy I am about you.” He pauses for a second, wiping his face clean of tears. “I’m not cheating on you, loser.” He finally says, sniffling a little. 

Richie’s heart completely melts at that. “Then what are you doing?” He mumbles in an uncharacteristically small voice.

Stan laughs a little, grabbing Richie’s hand and rolling his eyes, continuing his walk. “Come with me,” he insists as he picks up the pace to make up for lost time. “You’re such a dumbass, how the fuck am I in love with you?” he mutters under his breath, earning a small protest from Richie. 

Richie continues to make guesses on where they could be going the entire rest of the walk as Stan just listens, exasperated. Stanley finally stops them at an unfamiliar brick building.

“Is this where you change into your superhero costume?” Richie asks, laughing at his own joke.

“Beep beep, Richie. Let’s go in,” Stan responds endearingly. 

Richie follows his boyfriend’s lead into the building and keeps walking behind him as he heads through the lobby into a separate room. Richie doesn’t have much time to observe the surroundings; for somebody his size, Stan sure does walk fast. Stan sits down on a bench and Richie looks around, recognizing it as a locker room. He watches as Stan takes off the sweatshirt and folds it neatly, revealing a tight white t-shirt underneath.

“You sure you’re not a superhero?” Richie asks, still slightly confused. “Where are we? What are we doin- what the hell are those?” Richie looks at Stan, perplexed as he puts something strange on the balls of his feet.

“We’re at a dance studio,” he says plainly. “And they’re called footUndeez.” 

“Foot undies?” Richie questions, trying to puzzle together what’s going on. Stan stands up, heading out of the locker room. Richie follows, still thinking over the events of the last few minutes. “Okay, I’m gonna need a little more explanation.”

Stan takes a deep breath. “I can’t believe I’m telling you this,” he mumbles under his breath. “I dance, Richie. I do ballet. You can’t tell anyone though. The only people who know are my family and the other dancers.”

Richie stands there, dumbfounded. “What? How long have you been doing this?”

Stan thinks it over for a second, counting in his head. “About eleven years now,” he says hesitantly. “Maybe twelve.”

Richie smiles a little. “You’ve been doing ballet since you were eight?” He questions, trying to think this all through. “You must be really good then,”

Stan shrugs. “Pretty good, I guess. Could be a lot better.”

“I don’t get why you didn’t just tell me. Or any of the losers.”

Stanley bites his lip. “I don’t know, I’ve always been kind of embarrassed about it. It’s like, it’s hard enough liking guys, I don’t want another reason for people to think of me as weak or not manly enough. This is my biggest secret so if I care about you enough to tell you this, you better know how much you mean to me.”

“I love you,” Richie says softly before it hits him again. “Holy fuck, you’re a ballerina.” He laughs playfully as he says it. 

Stan sighs dramatically, looking at the clock and then back at Richie. “Alright, you have two minutes to get all of the jokes out of your system and then I have class.”

**Author's Note:**

> i hope you enjoyed! please leave me a comment! give me feedback/constructive criticism and tell me what you think! what did you think stan's secret was, did you guess it before the reveal? love you all! come find me on twitter (@rainbowuris )
> 
> stay safe!
> 
> \- molly <3


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